Why are some kids born of the devil himself?

There’s something I really want to hear your opinion about. It is the whole nature versus nurture argument. For a long time, I have always felt children are born blank, i.e. not good or bad, but then a series of events happen in their lives, right from the day they are born, and later how they choose to handle those situations determine whether they become good or bad. But now, I don’t hold on to this belief anymore.

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One major reason I have ceased to believe that children are born blank is because of my neighbour’s kids, who are also my family friends. They have three kids, the oldest being about 8 years old, and I know when every single child in that family was born. They are a very balanced Christian family, and do all what they can to care for their kids. But you see, the first child, who is the only guy, he was born with a scowl on his face… no exaggeration. When he was a child between 0 and about 3 years old, this guy never smiled. Never! He was very very quiet, never talked to anyone, and never smiled. He looked wicked and unapproachable from the first day. Later in life, he had two younger ones, my sister came from US to Nigeria, and my cousin came to live with us. This means this guy, who is now 8 years old, has playmates, laughs and is very cheerful and playful.

But the thing is, that wickedness has not left him. He actually derives joy from seeing people suffer or in pain. Whenever he comes to my house, and I am punishing any of my younger ones, you can see the glee on his face. His joy comes from seeing his peers in pain. I know this because I have studied him over the years, since he was born. This gives me cause for worry, because I am afraid in future, he might end up hurting people deliberately, just so he could be happy and fulfilled. I know his parents discipline him well, and try their best. He is the only one in his family that is like that.

Then the second case is the popular family care pastor, Rob Parsons. He is the founder of Care for the family, in UK. I used to listen to him a lot, as a guest presenter on Focus on the Family. He has two children, Katie and Lloyd. According to him, Katie was born an angel, and had an angelic character all her early years. And Lloyd, he was born bad… in fact to come and torment their life. In his own words “Lloyd came out of the womb, smoking a cigar.” Now, this is even before the child has a chance to know what life is about, they’ve already formed their character, so it wasn’t about being born in a Christian home.

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Now, here is the twist. When Katie got into late teens or so, she became a rebel, and walked out of her parents’ house, which had her parents crying to God for a couple of years or so, not having any idea where their daughter was. She became a very bad girl, but walked back in to her parent’s house one night when loads of people held vigil specially for her. And the guy that was born bad? He cooled down later in life, maybe like late teens or early twenties, I can’t remember. So the good became bad, due to her choices, and the bad became good, due to his choices. The two kids are now great, involved in Christian ministry work, and have their own families.

So now, if a child, from the first day, came to the world with the intention of making life hell for everyone around him, should he still be blamed for his choices? After all, he was born that way. Lol.

In conclusion, I no longer believe children are born blank, from the real life examples I have given here. I believe children are born with a certain personality, which can either be skewed towards the good or the bad. Plainly speaking, I believe it is possible that a particular child can be born with a character which poses a high risk of him being bad, and as such, must be trained with a different hand from a child than a child who was born with a high propensity for being good. As you know, these are just my opinions. I am no scientist or behavioural psychologist. Please, let me know what you think in the comment section.